Getting to It and No Booze домой

Last Friday was the first day of actual getting down to it at the Alpine Fund. Basically, many areas for improvement were revealed by the expected arrival of a volunteer for which the Alpine Fund seemed quite unprepared. This was similar to my arrival. But I will be here for six months. This volunteer will be here for two or three weeks and apparently he thought we would be able to occupy most of his time here. Somewhere there was a miscommunication that might be better characterized as a non-communication. So that is one thing to do better: communicate accurately with potential volunteers before they arrive so that all parties are prepared. As of now The Alpine Fund is a part time NGO run by a dedicated and responsible law student. She does a great job with limit time and resources.

After a stop-and-go meeting with the new volunteer, it was the perfect time for Arianna and I to hash out exactly what the Alpine Fund does and how it does these things. I then asked her some questions about the organization and, when appropriate, offered some ideas from the PSO playbook. There is also a lack of delegation or division of administration for the related-but-distinct activities of the Fund. Thus we discussed officially delegating and separating the weekly classes, the trips, the special events and the administration. Naturally there will be overlap and people need to be flexible, but having a good idea or who is responsible for what will help give me direction and keep me from feeling overwhelmed. Otherwise there would be a danger of being overwhelmed by possibilities, none of which are urgent and then stalling in confused discouragement.

As I wrote in an email to a friend, I have arrogantly begun not so much restructuring as just structuring the Alpine Fund. Inspired by God, I first considered trying to structure the administration in my own likeness. I fear, however, that the human form makes for a poor administrative body. I am making things like “data bases,” a “volunteer placement form” and a “master calendar.” I have to say that my crowning vainglorious achievement, however will probably be trying to put a dollar figure on the joy of orphans when they go to the mountains. Yessir, nothing sucks the humanity out of an NGO (to make room for new grants) like a little old-school econ101 utility maximization formulae.

There are lots of little things to do also, basically the goal for me will be institutionalization such that the Alpine Fund can survive being jostled between competent hands in a regularly unsynchronized fashion.

On the home front, I have discovered what I suspected after our big feast; no one in the family drinks (certainly none of the women and certainly not at home). I can see why people would shun the drink. When unemployment, corruption and poverty are high, drinking is often a sad, forlorn and helpless affair. The resignation to despair that only reinforces this downward social spiral is an ugly thing.

Then there is the scene which I am more familiar with, the Young American/Anglo Party Drinking. Far from despair, this manifests as revelrous delight and vainglorious pomp. It’s usually fun and it smells of decadence.

Of course often the two intersect. There is the fun for moment which veils underlying sadness, depression, soul adrift. Sad all day, happy when they drink.

And there those who wash away the phony smiles of the work week to wallow in despondency. Happy all day, sad when they drink.

In those terms, there is not much good to say about drink. Indeed it is fair to say that alcoholism is dumb and that it sucks. This sucky dumbness seems to me most acute in rural areas where other flashy distractions of civilization do not exist. Alcohol is the only route for the weary escapees.

So, why did it bother me somewhere far back in my mind that the family complete rejects drinking? Now, my dominant rational self hold no grudges and think nothing less of my wonderfully hospitably host family for their adherence to values that have clearly led to general happiness and success. But I will not lie to myself, nor to anyone else, rejection of drinking entirely out of hand strikes me as a bit drastic and a small voice inside protests. Maybe a little decadence and despair is healthy. For me, it has given life a flavor that puritan living would lack.

It’s that precocious Golden Mean. A little excess, in moderation, allows us to see our faults and potentials all the more clearly. It is never good to obsess over either, but keeping ‘em in mind can’t hurt.

Bazaar English

October 26th – 25 kulatov

Waking following first light, the mountains to the south of the city were large and snow covered. There was a thunderstorm on the 25th. My main achievement for the day was setting up Russian and Kyrgyz classes starting next week. For $360 dollars I will get a month of 6 hr/day instruction five days a week. That is 120 hours of class. I will do 3 hours of Russian and 3 of Kyrgyz a day. I will be exhausted by the time I get to the Fund, but with prices this low I’d be crazy not to! Right?!?! Right?!
For those of you curious where exactly my Russian stands, I was rated as Pre-Intermediate. A more un-outstanding rating would be quite impossible.
I made it back to the Fund to teach my first English class. Only one pupil showed. Her name is Salavat, a girl of 16. She has parents but doesn’t know who they are or where they are. She lives with her teacher at her prep college. Her older sister is rumored to be working in a café in Bishkek her face is on an Alpine Fund mini-calender. She loved to climb to relax. Salavat’s younger sister is in an orphanage hours outside of town. Salavat wants to speak English perfectly so that she can teach English and eventually come the USA to teach Russian. Though she was born to a Kyrgyz mother, she does not speak the language. As a result she is not sure whether she is Russian or Kyrgyz, or neither or both. Another befuddled victim of ethno-nationalism. Her grandmother is known and a “good woman.” Salavat visits her about an hour outside of town on free Sundays. Apparently her kids have abandoned her to a village with spoilt water even though they are “rich.”
The English teaching aspect of the Alpine Fund is quite small or to put it positively, precisely targeted. Larger outreach is beyond Fund’s ability/will-power for now. The orphanage closest to the Fund is run by a parasitic director nicknamed Satan by staffers. Regular English lessons should be easy and fruitful at this orphanage but Satan makes it not worth while. The Alpine Fund does not give material goods that can be misappropriated and sold for personal profit. Therefore, Satan wants nothing to do with us and would just assume not have meddlesome foreigners whistle-blowing or muttering about propriety in the corner. Another orphanage is well run but located 1½ hours outside of town (by crowded uncomfortable standing-room only Marshrootka). Thus to do an English lesson a volunteer would have to commit at least 6 hours. As projects such as this come and go on a volunteer by volunteer basis they are a daunting undertaking. The prospect of all ground being given up once a volunteer goes home and no one is there to take his/her place tips the scales in favor of discouragement. This is an example of something that I think we should be able to do with better consistency and organization. We may not be ready. It may be better to do a better job at what we already do than try and expand.
The Fund’s English classes focus on former orphans that became involved on the weekend climbs or weekly climbing-wall sessions that are now on the cusp between University and a life of low-wage labor in the bazaar (should they not get mixed up in a bad crowd). We teach 3 or 4 15-17 year old kids English once a week. These kids are too old to be in the orphanages which are geared to school kids only through the equivalent of 9th grade. Under the Soviet system they would then attend a technical college for 2-3 year and graduate as blue-collar professions. That system is now defunct but the orphanages are not reformed. The result is a bona fide dead end. But, if they score well enough on a TOEFL test or can raise the money to go to a year of university prep, they will almost certainly gain admittance to a local university where they will qualify for a full-ride on account of their destitute status.
Anna and Sean are trying to get about $1,000 together for a scholarship for Ulan, a very motivated and smart bazaar kid. His parents are blind so he was put into the orphanage. Now that he can’t stay there anymore he loads trucks at the bazaar all day to support his family. He studies English at night with the help of the AF classes. He even brings books home to soak up. He didn’t show up my night of English, but he is the star of the show right now. For kids like Salavat and Ulan, the Fund makes worlds of difference.
That is wonderful but it just feels like so few kids for an entire NGO. Others take part in the outdoors activities, as many as 60 kids a month. The impact of that is more of a break from an orphanage. A couple days of joy… a worthy cause in its own right but fleeting.
These impressions are just what I have picked up the last couple of days. I have no doubt made mistakes and am unaware of important information. I will continue to flush out the Fund on the blog as a means of helping me see what I should be doing. I have done almost no work for the Fund despite spending the last two days there. I have been meeting the people, learning what is up and getting my own life together. Speaking of getting it together, I was reunited with my bag. YAY! I had another good conversation with my host sister and mother about linguistics, fittingly this conversation took place in three languages, only my host sister took part in all of it. Did you know that modern Turkish and Japanese are both descendents of Hun? It’s True! My family here has the poster to prove it!

From Bulgaria to Bishkek

I put this post in chronological order. The stuff from Sofia is first. WeSorry about the lack of photos. I will get those up... eventually.

Silly Stories of Bulgaria
-The Guru-
An elderly man staying several nights at the hostel in Sofia landed the unfortunate bed directly next to the door to the main living room. 1.5 inches of pine separated his resting head and the voices of our hostel’s night scene. The receptionist did her best to beat them but eventually gave in to Jenga’s powerful allure.
He never complained, however. He lay stiff as a board, impossible to tell if he managed to out-sleep the din. He was thin, almost frail, with grey hair and a full if unkept white beard. He looked old, not senile. Perhaps 70. His motions were stiff, abrupt and deliberate especially when he walked and got into and out of his bunk. He never appeared either in pain or at ease. His awkward movements were on account of a chronic deterioration of his nervous control that originated with whip-lash from a joy ride gone wrong at 16.
He was quiet, his social mannerisms mirrored his physical movements. Slow, simple, awkwardly abrupt. None doubted that he had the making of a first-rate guru.
True to form, after a couple days of lingering silently with hunched shoulder on the margins of our little hostel universe, he joined one of the periodic conversations about where someone was going or where they had come from. These most often occur just before dinner as new guests, rested and settled explore the social space of their new home hoping for kindred sprits or at least some good tips about where to go and what to do.
He piped up and all of us, younger and eager to hear from the mysterious man of many years in our midst, piped down to listen, “you know I first went to that area [Iran] in the 1960s. Back then the thing to do was the 3Ks… Kabul, Kathmandu and…” We brainstormed for the final K for a few moments. Despite the formidable knowledge of geography between us, the final K escaped us. I suggested Kashgar even though that area would have likely been a no-go during Mao’s reign. Seeing the wisdom in my incorrect response, the others gladly turned a blind eye to its obvious deficiencies and we turned back to our mentor.
“Yeah, well of course then you could go to all those places you can’t really go today and then back then there was no chance of traveling where you guys are headed [destinations in former Communist Eastern Europe].”
With that he retreated to silence… having been brought to a conversational impasse, we interrogated the elder gentleman for his story.
Canadian, worked for the [Royal Mounted?] Canadian Weather Service before retirement from Yukon to remote posts in BC, traveling his hobby. He takes it in legs of a month to two months, has been everywhere at least once. Living alone he writes an annual 12 page letter to former companions every January.
The next day he approached me suddenly and stood by my bed until I was sure he really wanted to talk to me and stopped reading.
“You know the other day I was thinking about our conversation from the other day.”
“yesterday?”
“Another big difference between traveling then and now is the water. You couldn’tt drink the water most anywhere back then and today it’s good in most everywhere.”
“Yeah, huh.”
“Yup, we always were drinking tea back then. All the time all day long hot tea.”
“That’s a lot of tea.”
“Oh yeah. And of course back then we didn’t talk about human trafficking and other academic stuff. Mostly travelers were burned out drifters that hated talking about booze, sex and weed but couldn’t speak to anything else.”
“Geez.”
“Well, that or ignorant hippies hoping for a spiritual revelation during a two month road trip.”

The guru scoffed at cathedrals. “No thanks. Not another European cathedral.” Long may he runneth.

-Maritime Legal Nicities-
Before I resigned myself to not seeing my visa card until Bishkek I went through a period of agitation which culminated in an anticlimax. I had been wasting money all day calling the US with phone cards in Bulgaria. In Macedonia, relatively cheap phone centers had been the norm but in Bulgaria they were no where to be found, the market for long distance phone calls abandoned to telecom credits usable on company pay phones. Twenty dollars disappeared in 5 or 10 minutes of navigating an automated “customer service” program. Even having memorized the buttons to be pushed, the waste was putting my patience to the test.
I had to make a final call to see if the card could be found in New Jersey and sent on its merry way to Bulgaria. The appointed hour arrived when their offices opened and I put my card in a pay booth and prepared to dial my way to peace of mind. Visa’s first few cues are voice activated. This is meant to make you feel like you are talking to a robot person instead of a machine or something, I don’t know but my memorization of the correct key strokes had to wait until I had passed this first obstacle. I hollered speak to a representative at every pace, volume and accent that I could think of but the connection was just too craptacular. The machine couldn’t get it. This wasted like 4 dollars or something and the idea of spending that money to yell into a phone on a busy street in Bulgaria in English was disheartening. So I quickly packed up my stuff and set off. About 30 seconds and one left hand turn later, I realized that I had left my notebook with the proper numbers at the phone.
I pulled a pretty fancy ambulatory one eighty if we do say so yourself and was surprised to see that my note book was not at the booth. I scanned the crowd. People walking, people waiting to cross the street, bum throwing paper into a dump, people walking… hold up!
The double take confirmed that a grey bearded holy-oversized trench coat man had my not book on a dumpster and was tearing out page after page. I walked over. He backed up surprised to see me, like I caught him kissing my daughter or something. He looked me in the eyes, still gripping the notebook. I looked at the notebook, looked into his eyes. My move. Without the benefit of the vocabulary necessary to artibitrate this dispute I thought it best to default to maritime law. He had clearly salvaged my abandoned vessel.
But he had similarly scrapped all of the irreplaceable information that I needed. I gave the captain a salute in the form of a curt nod and did some salvaging of my own. Papers in hand, he approved of my assessment of the situation. He permitted me to review the gutted book and ensure I had all I needed. He had something to sell to a poor soul in need of half a notebook and I was free to pull out more hairs calling the credit card company.

Munich
The trip to Munich and the first couple of days were spent with intestinal complications. Greg nursed my back to health with the ample nutriciousness of buttermilk cookies. Sweet delicious buttermilk cookies. We went to a sauna built for the Olympic Games and hung out with man an elderly anonymous naked German. Some were good natured and jolly, others demanded silence. Silence in the sauna? Who ever heard of such heresy. So be it Wrinkly German Man, you win this round.
My last day there we played ultimate for hours. It was glorious. I hadn’t moved my body like that in well over a month. I was a little rusty, but it wasn’t embarrassing on account of the relaxed/sloppy nature of the game. After the game we ambled tired, sore and hungry to a outdoor beer house. These places are amazing, they manage to make every day feel like a holiday. They darn well better for 6 Euro per liter of bier. I ate two foot long brats, fries and sourkraut. In short, I was back and better than ever.
My time in Germany was great. It was wonderful to watch CNN, talk with Greg and generally bum around with that ol’ college buddy. Can I call a friend from college an ol’ college buddy only 6 months after graduation?


Bishkek Baby!
My arrival in Bishkek followed two nights of poor sleep: one anxiously awaiting a pre-dawn alarm on Greg’s floor and another in the plane. I walked off the 757 with about a dozen other volunteers. Tellingly, all were plump North Americans going to work for NGOs. Huh.
The airport was well kept but tiny. Two rooms compose the baggage claim. Unfortunately neither contained my bag. I blame New Jersey. I filled out a form and breezed through customs.
Despite the fact that the sun had not risen, I was warmly welcomed to Kyrgyzstan with my very own gaggle of young taxi drivers to pull and prod me to their capital city. Being a fair man, I chose the tallest taxi driver. I got into his unmarked car after repeating my price of 300 som like a brain dead parrot. I got in the passenger seat. At this point my driver and I were graced with the presence of my driver’s friend in the back seat. I knew it would be stimulating conversation as soon as we pulled out of the parking lot as our backseat talker began lamenting Kyrgyzstan’s gas prices which are among the most reasonable in the world. He wanted $40. We had agreed to $8. We haggled and haggled though there was no haggling to be done. The climax of the conversation came when the man in the back said, “You a good guy. We wait all night for you. I shoot you. $40.”
“You will shoot me?!? No! You’re not going to shoot me! And I don’t have $40.”
They exchanged Kyrgyz phrases for a moment and then the man in the back corrected himself, “I sure you! Sorry I sure you!” I think me meant ‘I assure you’ or ‘I am sure of you [being a good guy].’ We had a good laugh. I paid them $12 for the cab ride. Taxis are always an experience.
At my new home I was greeted by Asooloo my 24 year old host-sister and my tossle-headed host-father who goes by Mister Uzbek though he is Kyrgyz and not Uzbek. I slept four hours.
My new home is fittingly constructed of poured concrete, just like all those houses in Albania that I thought so irredeemably silly. It is quite large however, and I curious how they will heat it in the winter. Poorly, I suspect. My area is separated from the rest of family’s living space by a living room that is spacious and sparsely decorated. Judging by the lack of comfy furniture it is also sparsely used. My room is 10’X10’X10’ with a carpet to keep my toes safe from the frigid floor, a table, a single-sized bed and bed end shelf-space. There is also a large window, which is good.
The best part of the house is actually not part of it. The courtyard sports a loud dog and a 50’X25’ garden. They have a friendly cat that looks remarkably similar to my first cat as a four year old. Unlike my missing cat, it is not named “kitty.”
I learned some Kyrgyz words, inconveniently written in cursive Cyrillic. I suppose I have to learn some day. I asked about going to the Alpine Fund but the day of my arrival was the day after Ramadan, a holiday. We piled into the family’s Lada limosine and headed to an uncles place. There a HUGE feast awaited us. I ate as much as I could, everytime I stopped they stopped their Kyrgyz conversation to urge me onward “kooshi! Kooshite! Kooshi!” meaning “Eat! Eat! Eat!” I ate ate until all parties were satisfied with my performance and I was stuffed.
At this point we took some time outside. After a while I noticed another stove going and learned that there was another course. Wily devils, the Kyrgyz after Ramadan. We had eaten perhaps ¼ of the food piled on the table and now we were cooking more. After some polite conversation in Russian the family turned excitedly back to more interesting matters in Kyrgyz. As I was about to lose conciousness, the next course arrived. There was fried rice with meat and, the piece-d’resistance, boiled beef. I got the thigh and the knee.
On our way home I saw a Bactrian camel walking along the road. It can be mine for the price of 300 dollars. Men in small scattered groups conversed along the road, hoping for some short-term work. The water is potable. My family has four working daughters, two are married. My host-padre teaches at a technical university. I think this means I landed a place with an upper-middle class family.

October 25, 2006 - Bishkek
My room has mosquitoes that required swatting last night. They awoke me. I felt rested. It was dark. It was 11:30. I had slept an hour and a half. Damn. Rolling out of bed at 10am after 12 hours in bed was not easy. I woke up later than expected. Damn.
Mr. Uzbek, who is Kyrgyz and my host father, kindly gave up trying to explain how to find the Alpine Fund via public transport and drove me. Arriving at the building I knew I must have written down an old address for there was no Alpine Fund signage in sight. Before me was a excellent of Soviet apartment architecture, designed by Kruschev himself in fact. We asked inside an office. They replied that a couple years ago there was some fund in back but they hadn’t seen any evidence of it in some time. They had moved. Just to be sure we went around back, there the apartment number 16 would be. After a couple of fruitless forages into the apartment block (open to the public courtyard, naturally), I went into the basement of the last door. There was a door with an Alpine Fund sign. By sign I mean piece of paper with “Alpine Fund” and a logo printed on it.
Sean opened the door. Mr. Uzbek who is not Uzbek bid me ado and explained how to get home. Sean handed me a stapled packet including a color map of Bishkek. “It’s from the Hilton.” Aha. “Their information is the best in Bishkek. If you have a question, call the front desk or go visit. They assume anyone with an accent is a high paying customer.”
Yes, Sean is clever. He went to Pacific Lutheran University. If the University of Puget Sound is the Harvard of the Tacoma then PLU is the Harvard of South Tacoma. His fiancé is likewise from PLU. All three volunteers then are residents of Tacoma. The odds, if you are wondering are approximately 132,348,093:3.
He informed me of the Alpine Fund’s woes for a while. I consoled him and reassured him that I, an inexperienced college graduate, would make it all better in six months. Basically the AF has structural problems with organization and consistency. Tellingly, my tenure of 6 months at the Fund is on the long side. Most come for a month or two. Anna and Sean for 4. On the one hand, the AF would not run without these volunteers who give time and effort and get no compensation. On the other hand, by the time most volunteers figure out what to do, it is time for them to go. Hopefully, I will help to systematize the AF so that people can get into the swing faster. Hopefully, the AF can find funding for longer-term volunteers in the future. There is only so much an NGO with a part-time local director and short term volunteers can do. It is unrealistic to ask people to give up more than months without subsidy or compensation. The director position, currently help by the competent and capable Ariana has seen similar troubles. Most directors have lasted not longer than a year. Ariana will be there for a few, but she is putting herself through law school. The end result of all of this is non-existent long-term management. There is almost no record keeping, collaboration, or accounting.
The AF runs on good will. It is enough to keep going but not enough to excel by my first impressions. I will vainly through myself into the ego-grinder. The rest of the day I spent meeting Anna and Sean and dining with them, the director Ariana and her sister. Sean and Anna Take off for Tajikistan tomorrow. This will afford me the opportunity to feel what it’s like to walk into the AF naked. After meeting the President in the states, I have a feel for the long term goals but the day-to-day is still nude. Sean explained to me that it seems a de facto tradition that each volunteer take on a project. Theirs is a scholarship for a very bright kid. If he passes a prep year of school, his financial situation will qualify him for a free ride at most any University in Bishkek, especially the American University (“Harvard of Central Asia”). Ironically, my project will be to kill this system-less system and try to do what Westerners do best. That is, analyze, categorize and, in the pursuit of efficiency, render heart and soul separate from the body.
A side note about Islam in Kyrgyzstan: during dinner the director’s sister (_) spoke about the fact that Kyrgyz are getting more religious, even in liberal secular Bishkek (the liberalist and secularist dern town in Central Asia). The religiosity makes her uncomfortable, “I am for freedom of expression or whatever but stay away from me, you know?” She is pursuing a political science Masters at a local university. Hizb Ut-Tahrir, the international non-violent political Islamist movement is still illegal and underground in Bishkek.
I took public transport and found my house after sloshing around dodgy backstreets/Kruschev apartments for a spell. IN THE DARK. Booyah. Once home I put my Russian to good use during a conversation with host sisters. A fine first day… already it is long and there is much to do for the foreseeable future.

Homestay in Kyrgyzstan

I have been emailing back and forth with a tourism agent who connects tourists with homestays. I want to spend my first month in a homestay. This is much longer than normal. On relatively short notice the agent was struggling to place me with a family as the families normally like to have guests just for a day for a two and work off of a set price list for meals and what not. So she asked her mother. The mother agreed. So I will be staying with the tourist agent's mother. The daughters now live on their own.

It begins.

Illicit... Bulgaria.... Scotsman... Language and Other Otherwise Unrelated Thoughts

October 16th - Sofia, Bulgaria

Illicit Political Economy in Bulgaria

Brendan Former Afghanistan Expat Goody-do-right Scott, Anja German Student of Bulgarian Social-Realist Literature and I Babbling Idiot went out Friday night. We searched Sofia high and low for the hippin’est and most hoppin’est of venues. Alas, our first selection was piano bar/lounge complete with obligatory pictures of the Rat Pack produced only single 30 and 40-somethings crooning to their favorite Bulgarian and American classics. Now age conscious, we hired a cab for the University District. Woe and sorrow! Blown out speakers turned up to eleven ruined any potential enjoyment of classics such as “what is love, baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me… no more.”

“Sin City”

Back in the center it was decided that the last viable option would be Sin City, a large venue spotted near the hostel. After a pat down and metal detector we were in. This was the first bar with a heavy dose of security guardsThis established blasted turbo folk like 1999. We stood awkwardly to the side while very strong, very fat men shook hands and hugged other fat strong men in turns. People danced on table-tops. The go-go gals paid a visit to a particularly large (fat) man sitting in the middle of a table on either side sat two large (strong) men with only a beer for sipping pleasure. These men scanned the crowd and said little. Despite the shiny glamour, strobe lit disco-balls and enthusiastic table-dancing, it was clear that we stood out like kiddies at the grown up table (or grown ups at the kiddy table). The only black man in Bulgaria, dressed in a 19^th century coachman’s suit, bid us farewell at the exit. Suffice to say we left that world speechless for 30 seconds, followed by 15 minutes of trying to talk about it, followed by prolonged speechlessness.

Human Trafficking

Perhaps by coincindence an American woman of 25 years arrived to the hostel the next day. She has lived in various parts of Europe for about 5 years. She has been learning a great deal about human trafficking and utilizing her Anthropology undergrad background to conduct informal interviews with many people in areas highly affected by the trade, namely Odessa and Moldova. This is what I learned from here if memory serves:

Good looking Eastern European girls (of which there are many, a typical Eastern European build resembles the ideals of beauty in the West and thus the world) are approached by a friend, relative, or a “business recruitment” agency. The ladies come from places where there is little hope for the lifestyle promoted by magazine, song, and film should they stay at home. Promised high wages and the dream of a good life in a Western country, they are duped into leaving everything behind and to trust the guidance of an agency. The places they are promised work often do actually exist or at least have web-pages. Those that exist outside of virtual reality rarely are aware of their Moldovan recruitment efforts.

Once displaced their lives or the lives of their families are threatened and the girls are put to work, most often as prostitutes. A cost of $2,000 for documents and transportation becomes an exorbinant debt of tens of thousands of dollars that must be “paid back.” Large destinations for Eastern European women include Dubai, Turkey, Western Europe and Russia. Major source countries include Russia, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, and much of the former Yugoslavia.

Several organizations work to repatriate the girls. This typically costs about US$ 10,000. An ounce of prevention often is worth more than a pound of damage control. The American woman hoped to resolve the sources of the problem, namely the inability of the girls to assess the claims of recruiters and the complete lack of alternative economic opportunities. A few distinct ideas seemed to appear over the course of our conversation:

1. Microfinance for girls to have opportunities other than taking a chance.
2. An informal network of people to check into the proclaimed destination of a recruiter
3. A certification organization to look into the claims of actual talent recruitment business.
4. Traveling education lectures to visit the most likely victims (this approach is currently supposedly undertaken by some huge NGOs whose names I forget).

Ideas about education are a simple start but the level of desperation that compels someone to leave home all on their own despite the apparent obvious risks makes a DARE-style lecture seem to me unlikely to have lasting effects (of course if you sway 1 or 2% on the fence not to do it, that is significant).

The technique used to rope girls into this blatantly evil practice strike me as unusually devious and malicious. People need hope. Coming from a bleak past and with vision only of a bleak future, the need to hope compels an individual to take an ill-advised chance… perhaps even if they know it is ill-advised. The endemic nature of corruption in many source and destination countries makes working through governments towards enforcement little more than wishful thinking.

I hope that people like the American woman find ways to start initiatives like those listed above. If anyone who reads this wants to know more, email me and I get you in contact with the under-experienced 25 year-old California native who knows a lot about what is broken and wants desperately to find ways to fix it.

Talking and thinking about this made me look back on the run in with the “not-professional” prostitute in Ohrid with renewed nausea. My intuition tells me that her situation is much different from those trafficked but prostitution still sucks.

Brendan’s Plan to Save the World or Get Rich Trying

I spent the majority of the last week bumming around with Brendan, a 26 year-old Scotts-man with a flair for quoting literature and poetry, a zestfully bleak attitude to veil his deeper optimism and a height of 6 feet 5 inches. Brendan is intelligent and hardworking, characteristics that led him to the highest academic heights of British and American law programs. Working single-mindedly with every waking minute to achieve academically burned the man out eventually. To be first in your class offers a path so well worn for such a golden child of Law School. But as his heart wasn’t in it, he put his considerable intellect into non-profits. This led Brendan to Afghanistan in 2004 where he has worked for the last two years.

Brendan and I conversed epically to a fault. Even attempts to talk about women in the most superficial of ways turned into dialogues exploring what shaped our opinions. Eventually resigned to our fate, we drank begrudgingly to endlessly good conversation. Brendan, upon returning to Scotland. Will begin setting up a middle-man organization for NGOs and clients. Their organization will direct money from rich donors to worthy NGOs and will guarantee accountability and results by working with groups that measure outcomes of their project. This is what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation demands and it is a relatively new and definitely rapidly expanding aspect of the non-profit community. According to Brendan almost anything can be measure quantitatively. It would be fascinating to learn how. Brendan will be the main guy in charge of selecting charities.

I learned a great deal from Brendan. His presence in Sofia made yet more eager to get to Kyrgyzstan and get less theoretical and more practical.

Random thoughts on Language and Culture (cont’d from last entry?)

Brendan traveled through Iran on his way here and remarked on a Persian concept that pervades their art, music, food and architecture. The Persians have a word that expresses a sort of overwhelming or overindulgence. As a result many foods, buildings, artworks and musical pieces are overly busy, ornate and impressive. Unfathomably beautiful and intricate and yet too much to enjoy for long. I think the word must be uber-Baroque.

Learning languages is like seeing new colors. These colors may only be concepts of the mind but nevertheless the richness of perception of the world increases exponentially.

October 19, 2006 – Munich, Germany

I have abandoned all hope of seeing my precious visa credit card ever again. After departing Indianapolis nearly a week ago, my visa card arrived in Paris. As its final destination was to be Sofia, Bulgaria, this made sense. Then things took a turn for the worst. New Jersey lured my visa card into its seedy depths. It has yet to emerge. Though broken hearted, I knew I had to carry on.

I did the bus dance for two days. I was very sick for the first day, which worked out well. I was stuck on a bus where I could expect only to be cramped and sweaty and where I could hope only for sleep. Stiff and sweaty from fever, sleeping was all I wanted to do. After a brief layover in Prague, I met Greg in Munich. Dysentery aside, things are going well.

Sometimes the fulfillment of a stereotype can be a beautiful thing. Munich has provided a few such moments all ready. Everyone rides bikes. They are strewn about the sidewalk and in front of the dorm. They are not locked to anything but a chain prevents the rear wheel from turning. People say things like ‘ist goot, ja?’ and greet one another with ‘greet god’ in a goodly German accent.

update's a-comin!

I have a lengthy post on my computer that i have been unable to post.

here is what's on tap:
Sofia is a land of gurus.
My Long-Held Suspicions that New Jersey Is the Black Hole that Sucks the Life Out of All Things Pure and Good Have Been Confirmed.
My fever broke on hour 20 of the Sofia-Prague express.
The Koran is not a "page-turner."

October 12 – Sofia, Bulgaria.

October 12 – Sofia, Bulgaria.

The day I left Ohrid for Bulgaria (the 9^th of October) I ate breakfast with some Peace Corps volunteers working in Albania. I cannot say I am too jealous of their country assignment. While the people are very friendly, the language has not appreciable connections to any other language. The population of the entire country is about 3 million, another 4 million Albanians live in the near and far abroad. They were fun, smart and friendly. Fear not, for America is well represented in Albania.

Social customs remind me a bit of Siberia. After speaking to a local girl/women within 10 years on either side of one’s age the rumor mill starts and within an hour come the inevitable… “Are you going to marry your _____ (maybe even your host sister)?”

“No.”

“Why not? She is not pretty? You don’t like Albanian women?”

Another day off the map. We parted ways as I boarded the bus bound for Sofia and they for Albania. The now perfunctory turbo-folk blared through the night. Its thumping bass and shrill reed overtones easily pierced any mellow music I have in my Ipod.

I met interesting people on the bus. A young couple of about 30 kept an eye out for my well being and informed me of when I was being corrected by the driver (the lack of eye contact killed any comprehension meager Russian might afford). An Albanian student in Bulgaria’s American University made for good conversation during our frequent smoke breaks. Finally there was the Skopje pediatrician/pulmonologist.

Upon hearing me speak English the doctor was keen to practice his. After a few early stumbles within 20 minutes he was unstoppable. What started as a mundane conversation about family became a discussion of borders, identity and race. This progression is quite natural when people ask about my name, where my family is from or about how they have family living in America. To make a long story short, he was quite racist. He proposed that all “civilized/white” (he used the terms interchangeably, political correctness may have been more prominent had we been speaking Macedonian but the subtleties are often lost once you use a second language) people should just get along and work together to keep from being over run and culturally subverted by blacks, Mexicans, Muslims and Chinese.

I mostly listened, putting in a word or two here and there about staying in SA several months “liking Mexican” but the hints of difference or opinion were brushed aside with a “well, yes perhaps I agree, BUT…” onward and downward. He regretted the privatization of Macedonia’s industries to foreigners and lamented that Macedonia was now “less developed” today than 15-20 years ago.

There was a time not long ago when I would have responded with a “yes, perhaps I agree, BUT…” all my own. I tend to find myself defending open markets, but then I know of nothing else in practice, having grown up in the states. For him the socialist security of the past meant low wages, cheap goods and a good life on the whole. It sounds like endemic stifling of potential to me.

Now while I maintain personal preferences of comfort on issues like race, socialism and dinner tonight, I no longer see any system of belief, governance or living as inherently better or worse. Perhaps such distinctions can be made on a case by case basis but not upon ideas as a whole. When I lived with my Stalinist host family in St. Petersburg, even that seemingly straight forward case of good versus bad became completely subjective. If you can’t agree on facts, it is hard to agree on analysis. Anyway, who would I, a privileged young American, be to lecture someone who lived through Stalin’s reign and the USSR’s disastrous collapse?

These sorts of experiences draw me way from a clear picture of truth and toward an evaluation of relevance. This equivocates any lesson to be gleaned from an experience while recognizing the subtlety of variation. The weakness of this perspective is its strength. I live for seeing (or perhaps imagining) beautiful paradoxes like that. To me, they are moments of epiphany.

Learning languages well also holds lessons that I value very deeply about the subjectivity of cultural perception. This is most clear in the translation of closely related concepts. “Sorry” in English is translated (or poorly transliterated, as the case may be) as “iz-ven-eet-tia” in Russian. Sorry suggests compassion, and shared sorrow for another’s suffering, though we use it so often that it has lost this gravity. It is the speaker who is active in English by expressing her reaction of regret. In Russian, the phrase is a verb conjugated in the second person formal and means something more like forgive me. It is similarly used only slightly less frivolously than its English counterpart. Russians are far less inclined to establish themselves as the principle actors in their sentences. English is full of possession and personal initiative. The differences are trivial translations at first glance, but taken as a whole they add up to a significantly distinct world outlook. English speakers see themselves as able to affect change boldly in the world. Russians see themselves as the recipients of others’ or God’s actions.

To stretch the applicability of the idea perhaps beyond capacity, I would utilize the framework for justifying Russian as well as American expansionary and interventionist policy. Russians perceive rivalry and subversion along their borders (others negatively causing injury to Russia). Thus they seek to control or weaken their neighbors.

America may be expansionary and interventionist for opposite the opposite reason today. Americans see problems, want to “fix” them and proudly believe that we can. Through hard work and American know-how any problem can be solved.

From my limited familiarity with the period of America’s Westward expansion, however, I would argue that U.S. actions were more defined by the fearful perspective even if the ideology of Manifest Destiny remained grounded in the self-assurance of American Protestantism. American intervention in Latin America also smells of paranoia more than naivety. I guess when trouble is perceived in your backyard the motivations for dealing with it change. Russia’s Eastward expansion occurred at roughly the same time as America’s and has never really stabilized due to a lack of strong neighbors and natural boundaries.

Sofia is a good city but the real attraction has been some of the other restless bodies I have met at the hostel. They are more impressive than travelers in Central Europe and former-Yugoslavia on average. Several people are traveling around the world. One of them has been doing so as often as possible for a very long time. He is now 70. There is practically no where he has not been. A Scotsman is on his way back from Afghanistan where he worked for NGOs for two years. After a rocket hit his compound several weeks ago, he decided it was time to go home. A 23 year old German woman is studying some works by a Bulgarian writer who wrote Social Realism, and like so many talented creatives, used the system’s template for subversion. She is fluent in English and Bulgarian and has two or three other Slavic languages under her belt. Another guy is writing a novel, “a red-neck catch-22.”

A writer/editor for Sofia’s weekly life-style magazine interviewed me today. Every week they profile a traveler to Sofia and I was one of the few people in the hostel when she came by today. It was a great conversation. I had to explain how I feet about 9-11 (something I have not never directly articulated or thought about before) and explain why I am reading the Koran. When asked for a story about traveling, I told her about the Mister Piernas competition, it was the only interesting story I could think of when prompted with “could you tell me a story about something that has happened while traveling.” To my dread and amusement, she assured me that the story will certainly be published.

People almost always tend to pursue their interests to the nth degree. Climbers want to climb the hardest route, swimmers to swim the fastest and runners to run the farthest. Travelers to travel further and homemakers to perfect the abode. Linguists search for odd, dying languages and anthropologists for unique cultures. Each person is both admirably determined to get the most out of their experience and trapped into alleys of narrow definition by this process. In considering motivations from this perspective, I wondered what compels me to go to Kyrgyzstan.

It is another tally mark on the vain score-card of the odd and remarkable places briefly where I have briefly lived. It is the chance to broaden and deepen my youth-guide identity. It is to solidify my Russian and grow another tongue in a futile effort to understand everyone. I have a specific curiosity now after reading part of the Koran. The Koran is more prescriptive in its approach to handling everyday affairs than I would have guessed. I want to know how it is that Kyrgyz people reconcile their identity as a secular Islamic society. According to my reading of the Koran so far this is akin to proclaiming oneself to be a married bachelor.

I suspect that perhaps the effort to establish order through rigidity may be self-defeating. In Islam’s case, so much is at stake that competing claims for the all-or-nothing legitimacy resulted in decentralized religious authority and dissent though the holy book clearly declaims this outcome.

From the new Islamist Government in Somalia

“These were not regular demonstrators,” said Abdul Kadir Jibril, one of the Islamist Court officials charged with security in Kismayo. “They have a political agenda to undermine our administration.”

The Islamist government may end up providing what the country needs most, stability. This comment is still pretty funny.

NYT/reuters article here.

The Doosy

What follows is a doosy, (Webster’s dictionary defines Doosy: a days worth of writing). I wouldn’t expect anyone to have time to read it. I put headers in bold. At the end are some more philosophical tangents recent experience obliged me to explore when I couldn’t sleep at night. Putting all of this on the internet often seems a bit self-important. I don’t really know what to take out though as this is what I have been up to lately. Ella’s more recent post is far more concise and relevant than any of this, check that out here.

The last few days of travel have been dominated by a personality of a fellow traveler. Rather than try to explain or analyze the goings on piece by piece, I will sketch him with my keyboard.

“Joe”

“Joe” is 25. His name is Volva, a Russian name. But for Anglos, it’s Joe. He speaks English excellently but not precisely. He is fluent but makes many mistakes while speaking. His accent is Eastern European. Beyond that, however, it is enigmatic. Is forced to guess, people generally go for something unfamiliar and a bit obscure, like Finnish or Hungarian. Six feet tall he is strong but slender, a kick-boxer but out-of-practice. His hair is almost bleach blond and his eyes the lightest blue, a tint common to Russians. He had short hair, just longer than a buzz cut. He wore sunglasses, a tight undershirt, a leather jacket, tight jeans (by American standards) factory bleached in various placed. His collar, whether on a jacket or buttoning shirt, was always popped.

He graduated from Ohio with a degree in business, especially real estate. His interests in studies were then and today remain completely overshadowed by his interest in meeting people. He finances his travels by collecting rent on properties in Columbus, Ohio and Moscow and some kind of Ebay business.

Our conversation started as soon as I sat down on the bus. He never hesitates at to approach anyone. No nervous salesman, he drives the conversation unhurryingly. He was born in Ohio and has the, no a, passport to prove it. It is one of many. He has been living and traveling for three or four months in Eastern Europe, mostly the Balkans. He lived a month in Skopje (Skope-ia, like Sofia), a month and a half in Beograd (Belgrade) and has otherwise been traveling to Sarajevo and Mostar in Bosnia/Herzagovina, Dubrovnik in Croatia, Kotor and Budva in Montenegro, Ohrid in Macedonia, and Sofia and the Black Sea Coast in Bulgaria.

He has a sound grasp of the (Belo)Russian language, his vocabulary and ease of speaking is exponentially higher than mine but his grammar is far worse. His father was from Minsk and he spent years there growing up. His mother is from Prague. His comfort with Slavic languages and diving into conversation has allowed him to pick up enough Serbo-croatian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian to be conversational. Paradoxically, Joe’s lack of hyper-fluency in any one language is in many ways a great strength. Lacking a rigid linguistic structure, Joe’s personality transcends any language barrier.

He regales me with stories about how he helped a Scotsman he traveled with in Montenegro steer clear of being ripped-off, how many girlfriends he dabble with in each city where he lingered, and how he got great deals on accommodation all over former Yugoslavia.

He shows me camera and all of the lovely places he has been. In each picture he is standing before a lovely background, left foot six inches ahead of the right, his torso and shoulders slightly facing right but his head always square. He is not smiling in any of the picture. He has perhaps 50 pictures of this variety to show me. Two are of the scenery alone, “it was so shitty outside that no one was there to take my picture.”

“Ahh.”

We are in Albania and headed to Triana, the capital. He suggests that we split a room. I accept. I haven’t been very social since Beograd and cheap hostels do not exist in Triana. It is a bit too off the tourist track.

After traveling with Joe for three days, I came to admire him. I admire that he fearlessly approaches anyone. I admire that his personality is not contingent (or limited) by language. I admire his ability to bring a smile to the face of a complete stranger in mere seconds. In this regard, his ability to read people and communicate is almost telepathic. I came also to find him distasteful. I do not think I ever felt at ease around him. He would befriend a taxi driver, waiter, or whoever ran our lodgings one minute and critique them venomously the next. He was very impressed with his language abilities and charisma but never really listened and tried to understand what other people were trying to tell him. He would decry generalizations about nationalities or ethnicities and proclaim them in the same sentence. These irritations brought out of me a combination of jealousy and scorn. I was enchanted by his ability to be anything to anybody and repulsed by his inability to hold down a steady identity.

The reality of his personality is, of course, more delicate and subtle than the generalizations I must employ to understand him (and my reaction to him). But there is enough truth in them to catch a glimpse of him, opaque though the lens may be.

Albania

Up until my run in with Joe, my trip between Albanian had been typical of my traveling experiences. I was knowingly overcharged, but not absurdly so, and passed off from one random extraction artist to another. Taxi drivers dominated the day because right now there is no bus between Montenegro and Albania. Five hours in a bus costs about the same as 10 minutes in a taxi. Such situations are what they are. Indignity will only make it worse. My Montenegran chauffer tried hard to make conversation in English. His vocabulary was limited. Pizza, Triana, Podgorica, and Audis were all “beautifool.” Country-side, Kosovo and Croatians were all “not beautifool.”

Glad to have that straightened out.

He yelled at a man standing next to a car with Albanian plates. After a conversation in Serbo-Croatian he became my driver once I crossed the border. My caravan made it to the very highly policed yet very chaotic border. Horns honked in futile and irritating expression of exasperation. The police remained gruff but indifferent. Somehow they kept things moving remarkably slowly despite undertaking no more than superficial inspections of persons, documents and vehicles. With a handshake, my passport was stamped. I have never shaken hands with border police before. Albanians, in general, like Americans.

Entering Albania is to enter a whole different world. It is a destitute country complete with potholes large enough to wreck a truck, businesses peddling goods I cannot imagine anyone wanting, and rusting equipment. On the whole the infrastructure spans the full range of quality, from relics better suited for a museum or kitchy antique store to most contemporary of microwave transmitters for telecoms. Piles of mud, garbage and broken contrete formed a fairly consistent mound along side the road. These piles of waste never fail to bother me. What better way to reduce the quality of life than to live amongst yesterday’s refuse?

We passed several sights that stuck me as odd: a man driving a minature steam roller on our dirt road, herds of goats (blocking the road), dead tree telephone poles and carts being pulled by mules being passed by brand new Mecerdes SUVs.

The rural areas of Albania are dotted with miniature mushroom-shaped bunkers built by the Communist regime. The were used for practicing emergency drills to prepare for wars with imaginary enemies (while relations between states in this part of the world are usually cordial at best, the benefits of attacking Albania are dubious).

Entering Triana, the capital, reminded me of the first glimpses of cities in poor regions of South America like El Alto near La Paz, Iquitos or Julianna on Titicaca. Every building outside of the center of the capital was built with concrete. The new buildings were poured; the old ones, cinder blocks.

The center could have been most any part of any European city. A brief spell of wandering confirmed that there was little fun to be had doing that outside of voyeuristically marveling at the poverty outside of the center. Joe talked with several pretty women, none of whom could show us around that night.

A concert in the central square had some folk music and dancing followed by Turbo-folk. This is an eclectic melding of folk and techno/crap hip-hop. The event was sponsored by some organization for Southern European unity. Their trucks bore the flags of all nations South or East of Croatia and Serbia. Kosovo’s flag was marked identically to Albania’s. The Turkish flag was first and larger than the others. They gave away free meals before the concert. Turbo-folk is typical of Turkey and I would not be surprised if this was an effort to boost Turkey’s cultural influence in the area. Many large governments, including our own, have cultural departments in their foreign offices to oversee the spread of cultural influence and recognition. We walked around that night and early the next morning to play the tourist game and boarded a bus for Skopje. Joe constantly discussed women, “is she good looking? And that one? What about her?” When he works a woman he devotes all of his considerable energy and talent into charming them. I would consider shameless. As soon as the woman is out of ear shot, he reassure me that it is all just a bunch of fun and that she was not really great for one reason or another. I got the feeling Joe enjoyed telling people what they wanted to hear.

And hear they must, for while Joe asks for an response or a appraisal of his statement, he never left a question open ended. As a result, though we were in one another’s company almost every waking hour for three days, our conversation rarely dipped beneath the superficial. Almost paradoxically, he seemed at times to both want to treat me like a naïve person needing his expert traveling skills and simultaneously craved my approval. Perhaps his lack of placement has him searching for belonging in unusual places.

Bus Ride

We got on the 9am bus to Skopje, an eight hour ride. Joe’s assessment of Albania was almost entire negative until the bus ride. He asked me at least eight times, “Do you know what I like about this country?”

“What?”

“Nothing!” But on the bus a couple of young ladies smiled broadly at us as we walked to our seats. Joe put his bag in a seat and immediately went back to start a conversation with them. I watched from further back. Then I moved closer. I Realized that I was behaving very awkwardly. Having the benefit of experience, I knew that awkwardness does not diminish on its own with time. It takes some effort, usually very little. So I worked to dig myself out of my anti-social hole and soon we were all sitting around a small table on the bus. Joe took to smothering the girls, especially the older “prettier” one by his estimation with unending flattery and flirtation. It was shameless and made me a bit uncomfortable but it made the ladies laugh, me grimace (close enough, right?) and never failed to keep the conversation alive (or at least undead).

Joe turned the conversation to the kind of guys the girls like. Their preference was for a combination of traditional male-subordination and comtemporary equality. A sort of limited equality. Joe pushed the flirtation hard the entire time. And much to my chagrin the rejection he first encountered softened and as we disembarked his efforts were rewarded with a kiss.

Women.

The girls were really interesting and had to work hard to make it as Albanians. Albanians can pretty much only work in Macedonia and Turkey, as other richer countries do not want large populations of impoverished minorities driving down the living standard. It would be very frustrating to be smart and educated and Albanian. They spoke almost perfect English but could hardly travel anywhere. They had a hard time understanding how I could travel not for work. (Joe claimed that he had “worked” in Macedonia and Serbia, in reality he had considered buying property but decided it to be too corrupt).

Macedonians don’t think much of Albanians. The relationship is probably not dissimilar to the stigma of many Latinos in the states.

The countryside in the East of Albania was more pleasant than the north. It was cleaner and things seemed less chaotic. A river that would have been suitable for a weekend of whitewater ran alongside the road.

We got off the bus earlier than we originally planned as the bus went very near Ohrid, a town I wanted to see. He wanted to show me around and had nothing to do in Skopje (the girls lived a family and would not be going out that night). I had hoped that by changing my plans without much consultation, we would part ways. I still had much to learn from my companion, however.

Ohrid

Getting settled in Macedonia involved a couple of cab rides and negotiations with homeowners that supplement their income by renting rooms to travelers, like in Kotor. As with women, Joe approached all of these transactions with suave-ity, pigeon-Macedonian, and undeniable charm. I was advised not to speak. It bothered me, but I could relate to his desire to get as chummy as possible to save money. He never failed to establish himself as more than the average tourist-traveler. He saved us 50% on the 30 minute ride from the town where the bus dropped us off to Ohrid. He would not let me tip the driver. I felt bad, I think the driver may have lost out on the deal.

Joe’s opinion of himself as exceptional dominated the first day in Ohrid. He complained loudly of any attempts, past or present, to “rip [him] off.”

Locals constantly milk you for all the Euros, dinars or pesos they can get out of you. I accept is as my roll. To get upset each time would be too indulgent in a combative siege mentality. I travel to open my mind to the world, not build mental barriers against all I meet.

The constant game of trying to charm people with far fewer opportunities to make money than myself feels manipulative. This perpective may be moderately elitist. It shortens and simplifies my interactions but it also makes me feel more open towards strangers and helps me sleep better at night even though I can earn in a month what an experienced professional might earn in a year.

Joe’s mentality of buddying up and then complaining about any possible extra-costs strikes me as hypocritical. He befriends others to make them feel comfortable and trusting but always remains suspicious of their true motives. I worry more about Joe’s motives than the taxi drivers. Is he not “ripping off” locals as he sets the price to the rock bottom in poor countries when he could afford to pay more? If getting ripped off is paying double the normal fare, bring to total for a taxi ride or a private room to a whopping $10 dollars, than isn’t it better just to get a little “ripped off” in the hope that that money makes a nominal difference in someone’s weekly income? It sure as hell doesn’t make a difference in my income. I don’t consider this to be wasting money.

Ohrid sits on a beautiful lake. It is hilly country. The hill of the old town is home to a 1,500 year old monestary. It is a beautiful structure with a grand view of the lush sparsely populated hills and the lake. Low clouds have given the scene a hint of Avalon. On the shore, 12ft small boats sit belly up revealing bright paintjobs.

Love Horny Boat Captain

As we finish a brief walk around the more beautiful and historic portions of the city, a middle aged man wearing an old captain’s hat approaches me. He starts a conversation along general lines before moving on to his sales pitch. He does boat tours on the lake. Joe at first wanted nothing more than to keep going but I wanted to listen to the guy’s spiel. Joe made some comment about women in Macedonia and how he “understands Macedonian” and the captain fell in love with my companion. He invited us aboard his boat, opened up a two-liter bottle of beer and listened with remarkable gusto as Joe recounted stories and strategies for picking up women.

The captain declared their minds to first be 99% and then 100% the same. In truth they were very similar, both clearly learned languages with great flexibility if little discipline or attention to detail. And despite their love of language, I suspect both would have been hard pressed to finish a book. (Joe could speak Slavic languages like Russian, Serbian, Macedonian, Czech and Bulgarian but couldn’t really read the Cyrillic script.) Both loved the ideal of seducing women and moving on. Both were smooth talkers. And the more they talked, the less I said and the more I convinced myself that they must be lonely. The old man made remarks along the lines of how intelligent and wise Joe was. He would then include me too for politeness. But I remained quiet and subdued. The gift of gab was not mine that night and that talent was held in high-esteem by this captain who prided himself on getting on well with people from all over the world.

As the conversation about girls became more and more involved, the captain offered to call a good looking 19 year old to show us around that night. Joe consulted me before accepting. I was unenthusiastic but I didn’t want to play the roll of morale mother-superior all of the time and told him I didn’t care. As soon as I said it I was asking myself why a fifty year old guy had a 19 year old’s number… none of the conclusions I could come up with were very soothing and I became quite uncomfortable as her arrival drew near. The captain also became more concerned about tactfully articulating that she probably could only spend a limited amount of time in our company and that she would like for us to spend some money on her dinner and maybe help her to buy something she would like. The sketchiness of the situation was causing tension.

She was petite, with darker skin than most Macedonians. She spoke no English and her Macedonian was discernibly cadenced. I thought she was likely a Roma, and I was right. She was friendly and easy enough for Joe to talk to with the captain translating. I got up to use the WC after a minute or two and thus missed much of the conversation. As she left the boat, the captain helped her off. His back turned, Joe tapped my knee and mouthed something along the lines of “what the hell was with that?”

“Yeah…” I forced a smile. But I was thinking that “that” was an unnecessarily unpleasant situation I would never have gotten myself into and the fruit of Joe’s labors. I didn’t say anything critical but I couldn’t hide my unhappiness. He told me not to be so worked up… nothing bad resulted from the experience.

The captain though was crestfallen by Joe’s obvious disinterested attitude in the girl he thought would make us so happy. When Joe excused himself for the WC I tried to diffuse the situation explaining that Joe likes blonds or something. The captain struggled to say that she was not a professional prostitute but just a modern free spirited girl that would want any man she was with to provide her with a little spending money. He thought this to be like any other male-female relation. I tried to just to reassure him that it didn’t matter to me. Up to that point I had been little more than an observer, so I just tried to reassure the captain that Joe and I didn’t think less or him or something.

After that I knew I had to get back to being on my own. No matter what the next night I would not be hanging out with Joe.

So-Long Joe

The steady rain of the next day made Joe determined to move on. It was a simple matter to stay even though there was “nothing to do.” I journaled at least 20 pages, and typed 9, read another section of the Koran, sent a couple of emails and now feel centered again among other mundane chores.

Before he left we shared some drinks with our host family. Joe jumped right into inter-ethnic relations in the Balkans and proceeded to tell it like it was. Our hosts would have been justified in decking him then and there, but they just told him that you don’t talk about such things. Joe told me they said something about the Albanians. I actually think Joe’s comprehension of Macedonian was lower than he believed. They smiled politely but I do not think they saw Joe as “getting it.” Joe then tried to dominate a conversation about earlier-Macedonian history with a friend of the family that sat with us to practice his English. If he would have shut up, he and I would have learned a lot more. He never really listened though, just tried to express his ideas.

I thought this was very arrogant. One should never preach history or politics to an acquaintance in their country. And to do it in former-Yugoslavia… I as taken-aback even after 3 days of being taken-aback.

After our final meal together I looked for my visa to withdraw some money. It was gone. I don’t know how I could have lost it. Joe was the only person who could have taken it. On the one hand, I wouldn’t put it past him. But I think he is smarter than that. Visa’s are not as useful for making purchases in newly democratic countries. Almost the only thing you can do with them is withdraw money. For that you need a pin. The card is also easily cancelled. I don’t think he would be that stupid. But it put a bit of a sour note on his departure. The situation was worked out quite favorably after getting on the phone with Visa and my dad.

I will pick up a new card to be ‘Fed-Ex’ed from home after Visa rush delivers is there. It should be in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria by Friday. The world is a quickly shrinking place. I had to ask for some money to be wired, which hurt my pride a bit. But working things out with my dad on the phone (focusing on resolving the problem), getting prompt offers to help from Greg (my friend currently in Munich on the Watson), and a timely online chat with Peters in Guatemala put me in a great mood.

I slept better that night than I had since meeting up with Joe.

Listening to Joe for 3 days gave me much to say. He probably sees me as self-sheltered, naïve and cold. I learned a lot form him in our short time together but like hard class with a unapproachable professor, I am happy to put the class behind me. Our objectives in wandering the Balkans are probably quite distinct and incompatible after a short period. I tend to travel quietly and reflectively, in many ways a contrast to life at home. Like wilderness trips, it is distinct tool for to see my life, friends, and opportunities from a new perspective. It also lets me put world events into a more palpable context. In other words, it is impermanent. Perhaps for Joe it is quite more a way of life.

Center

Night of October, 6^th – Skopje

Right now I do not feel I am living my own life. This experience has allowed me to see how this style of traveling with another is unsatisfying. This has clarified what I want, how I want to live.

I foremost feel uncentered: stretched and pulled in directions, down detours not meant for me. Being centered is more than the symmetry of opposite extremes. Opposite extremes do not cancel each other out. A healthy bout of college depressive reflection revealed that years ago. Rather a sort of concentration, a tighter weave of symmetry and an exfoliation of useless motional, physical and spiritual mass is the essence of being centered that I have come to pursue.

When this is well accomplished a sense of purpose, inherent and inalienable, fills my life. Purpose gives guidance and guidance gives determination and vision necessary for further centering. So is born a positive cycle of reinforcement. So to find center is not the arrival at a constant but rather a process of steady adaptive change and reform.

Religion

Western societies are caught is a spiritual crisis. Many religious people say that the people have become lost: without faith, without purpose and without values. I do not think it is because people have abandoned religion. Religion has always thrived so long as it has helped people to adapt to their reality. Rather, religion no longer answers questions relevant for today’s Western societies. The dominant Western religions (Judeism, Christianity and Islam) cannot reconcile the all controlling nature of a deity with modern physics.

An aside: Why trust physics and not religion? I cannot see, hear or feel an electron, nor have I had an encounter with God. So both are taken as faith? Wrong. When I flick a light switch, the light comes on. This can be explained by understanding the nature of electrons. God can never be explained, his actions (never reactions, for a timeless, all-knowing, all-powerful being to react would be absurd) cannot be predicted. Explanation and prediction give me reason to believe what I cannot directly perceive.

Back inside: Our universal understanding moved towards absolutist truths under the study of classical physics, but relativity, quantum physics and the Uncertainty Principle tells us our reality is far more subjective.

Computers run on principles of quantum physics. The peace-preaching believers of the same God continue to kill each other in the same holyland.

Truth, truth vs. relevance

Truth is not subjective and seemingly opposite and exclusive things can be and are both true. For example, life is short and people imperfect. One should thus not allow guilt to paralyze a person from pursuing good actions. On the other hand, actions have great impact all around, both passively and actively. You must seek to behave then as compassionately and virtuously as possible. To pursue the latter and accept the former is the mark of wise living.

If truth is subjective then perhaps one must not obsess over truth, but relevance. If something has predictive powers, helps us to better live, then it is relevant. This may very from person to person but the very variety of relevance is its strength. Whereas truth seeks to provide an objective answer, relevance sees a goal and asks how to de get there? Even regarding arithmetic like 1 + 1 = 2 we may view it not as “this must be” but rather, if we accept this idea then we have a powerful tool for explaining and predicting our universe. Such a perspective may do well to reconcile religion and secularism. Different tools for different problems. Such a perspective is, however, unlikely to satisfy analytical human minds which, for better and worse, seek concrete understanding of the causes of all we see.

A Ramble About Life of Pi

October 4, 2006 - Kotor, Montenegro. (My fourth and final night here!)

I stayed on here because I found it to be a nice place to be. The town is a labyrinth of beautiful little gems and surprises. But it is all so crammed that it is quite impossible for me to do it any justice in a photo. It’s is reclusive but rewards respectful curiosity. I hope to have a personality like Kotor when I am old. Reclusive, hospitable... convoluted. Don’t let my romanticized and self-indulgent tales of the town (or any my travels) fool you. I spent most of time with my nose buried in a book, my journal or working on some project on the laptop.

Be warned, what follows is not in any way about Kotor but thoughts and ignorances related to recent readings.

I began the Koran today. The second Sura felt quite long. Starting in on any new style of prose is tough. Whenever I get discouraged I think back to my slough through Macbeth in the 8^th grade. This gives me the resolve to read anything. I am not sure how much to write about attitudes towards it. The Koran lies pretty clearly outside of my intellectual framework and most anything I say will most certainly be ignorant. But I think that is exactly why I am reading it and if I don’t share my thoughts, no body can help me to better understand. Too bad none of my friends are Islamic.

The first impressions of the Koran are that it is a book written very deliberately. It gives very specific directions regarding society and religion. The acceptable terms for divorce are exactly listed as are when one make skip fasting and how to make up for it and, most of all, defense of the up-and-coming religion against conversion (back?) to Judaism or Christianity. Clearly I am no expert (Imam’s spend years studying the text and among most Muslim cultures only they are considered fit to make any public interpretations of the word of God) but God basically says that it’s okay to be Jewish or Christian. They are a little befuddled but they mean well on the whole. Anyone that has heard the truest newest word of God, however, is obliged to take up the Islamic faith or be a non-believer (infidel is such a politically charged word these days). And that is bad. The Koran does a good job of walking a fairly fine line between distinguishing Muslims from other Judeo-Christian faiths without hyperbole. It did have some controversial statements about women (II: 222-8).

Digesting some of the Koran got me thinking about Life of Pi. The narrator claims the book “will make you believe in God again.” The following will make more sense if you have read this book. I don’t think it will be incoherent if you have not, however, and the book cannot be ruined as there is no climax and the ending is revealed from the outset. At least that is just my impression. Forgive the quotation marks. The book questions the nature of belief structures so in this case it seems appropriate to use them. I gave the book away to an enthused couple so forgive me if I present some inaccuracies. Final disclaimer, I am a bit self-conscious about the length of these posts but with no other way to gain different perspectives on the work, I just have to bite the bullet.

Pi jumbles religions in the first part of the book. Pi is drawn to Hinduism, Christianity and Islam by motivations that are at once united (a sense of purpose, guidance and peace) and distinctly articulated. According to Pi, Christianity offers love, Islam sublime unity with God among all things, and Hinduism grandeur and dynamism. If one takes his less-interesting but more “believable” version free of zoo animal then the retelling of Pi’s tale of survival along metaphorical and comfortable lines, his story suggests that all religions are grasping for us to come to terms ourselves as well as the external world. Pi has similarly invented a “story” (his animalist account is quite factual, only the name and species of the character differs), a religion, to help him explain and come to terms with the events.

Atheism is celebrated by pious Pi. Atheism too is a consistent and coherent set or world beliefs. It is scientific creation mythology. Pi views Agnosticism with far less enthusiasm as it waffles. Uncommiting Agnosticism does not organize the universe or seek to explain it, throwing up its hands, frustrated by a difficult but worth while task.

The analogy of the zoo left me somewhat complex. In exploring it I digressed for quite a while into the misguided efforts to erect a wall in the desert southwest. Another day. But I have been building up a strong conviction that the barriers people erect are almost universally psychological. Let us assume that the zoo animals represent humans as they may in Pi’s account of his survival. Pi contends that animals in the wild are not happy or prosperous. Rather his portrayal is one of constant struggle to establish territory and find food, exactly what is provided in their zoo habitat. So animals actually crave the stability and security of a zoo. To back up his argument Pi relates numerous anecdotes about escapees happily returning to their enclosures. People are also quite able to break out of the security provided by place in society and make a go for it beyond its margins.

But we do not. We remain within our imaginary spaces (our homes, our work and our pre-established social networks). We may run off for a moment or two but we always basically come back, largely content to exchange one imaginary enclosure for another.

This analogy may be taking things too far. Any choice excludes possibilities that once could have been. That’s what a choice is. This may only rearticulate the analogy, however. Following this idea, the very act of living inherently creates spaces (temporal, special and social). While it would be unrealistic to expect anyone to be all places and pursue all impulses at once, it is undeniable that most people generally lead fairly well-defined lives. Anytime someone remarks “I’ve always wanted to ______” I am reminded of these imaginary boundaries that help us define the possible from the impossible.

If the idea that our social habits define existence as much as space-time holds any water, that would beg some interesting questions.

If anyone has any thoughts on the crazy island Pi found, I would love to hear ‘em cuz I got nothing.

You Too Can WIN!!

Beograd (Belgrade) has been bombarded by both McDonald's and NATO in recent years. These buildings were across the street from one another. So much for the McDonald's theory of Peace and Development. (A political science threorist whose name escapes me noted that no countries with a McDonald's had ever been at war) .

The American Embassy is about 2 blocks down this street (among many other NATO members). My hostel owner had no idea why it had been bombed, or at least he would not tell me.

To enter send one item to:

Anders Conway
Alpine Fund
Prospect Mira 74, #16
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

The first card to arrive on the day of my arrive or thereafter will win a special prize. Test the world wide mail system! You win extra points for creativity, organic materials and concealing contraband in your post... Maybe just postcards would be a better idea.

I bought cheese... at the deli counter. Nothing was repeated, all parties left the transaction satisfied. Yeah, today was that good. I hope to be in Albania by the 5th of October.

I Motor to Kotor! and Other Obnauseous Commentary

Kotor's walled city is nestled snuggly in an imposing fjord. Above the town, walls wind to an even more-defensible fortress. Montenegro was the only Kingdom in this region to remain unconquerred by the Ottoman Turks.

I have posted pictures on many of the previous entries. More are coming.

October 2, 2006 - Kotor, Montenegro

Montenegro voted to become independent from Serbia only a couple of months ago. It has a history quite distinct from neighboring regions as it was the only kingdom to maintain independence from the Turks from the 15^th to 19^th centuries. It is densely populated and rugged country. The coast shifts from the hills of Croatia to more imposing fjords. Taller, steeper mountains rise dramatically from the azure inland Mediterranean. Only 1000 kilometers inland, mountains rise to lofty heights of 2,500m (maybe 9,000ft). Montenegro uses the Euro.

Kotor sits in the largest Mediterranean fjord. The old town is walled and chalk full of cramped winding streets, old churches, antique Venetian palaces and humanity. Above the town a wall runs to a fortress high above the town. Its small and beautiful but large and alive enough to make ambling aimlessly along the cobbled streets entertaining. Outside of the walled town, buildings are being rebuilt. Some older buildings from the days of Yugoslavia are large, abandoned and look like hell.

The trip to Montenegro was short and smooth. Finding a place to stay was a little more difficult. I arrived on a Sunday, and despite the fact that this town is accustomed to a steady stream of visitors, no one could be found to give a cheap room. Eventually I just started wandering around old town with my over-sized backpack, hoping to find a building with a sign of “sobe” which mean a room for rent. A lady saw me wandering and inquired, “sobe? Sprechen ze Duetche?” As I don’t speak (or spell) German, I replied, “Da. Ne.” On the way to her friend’s place we had a remarkably well understood conversation in Serbian, English, German, and Russian.

While we waited for her friend to show me the place, we discussed family. This is always a good topic as it leads to others very easily. Her kid is studying political science in Beograd (ace w:st="on">Belgrade). It would certainly be an interesting place to ponder governance, national identity and the roll of the state. Her only sibling and husband were both killed in Bosnia. Upon hearing of my travel plans to go to Albania and Macedonia both my guide and my new host were quite perplexed, “Bah! But it is a modern place. There is nothing to see or do there. [There is] only concrete [there].” Past experience indicates that these protestations indicate that time spent in Albania and Macedonia will be well spent.

Despite (or perhaps due to) the recent bouts of weariness I have greater comfort now in the traveling. I buy food at the supermarkets and prepare it in a kitchen more often than not now. I wish I had more history books to read on these areas. It is terribly interesting and complicated. I can’t really complain about what I have been up to though so I will have to be satisfied with retro-active deeper understanding once I get back to the states.